Field
Aspects of the present invention generally relate to an image forming apparatus, a data management method, and a program.
Description of the Related Art
Recent image forming apparatuses have various functions, and contents of operations performed by a user have been complicated. Generally, the image forming apparatus is often shared by a plurality of users, and an auto-clear function is utilized therein which automatically clears a setting value after elapse of a certain period of time from the setting value has been changed so that a next user does not use the image forming apparatus without noticing the changed setting. In such a utilization form, a user needs to select every time a desired setting screen from an initial menu of the image forming apparatus. Thus, even if users have their individual setting values usually use, they each have to perform the same setting every time and it is bothersome. For example, assume that initial values in job settings of a copy function are “1 in 1” in a layout setting and “no finishing” in a finishing setting. A certain user changes the layout setting to “2 in 1” and the finishing setting to “staple on upper right” to use the copy function.
For another example, in a case of the image forming apparatus of which display language is set to Japanese, a user A who wants to use the apparatus in English as the display language sets a display language setting to English in a user setting. Accordingly, when the user A logs in to the image forming apparatus, the image forming apparatus displays each function in English. As described above, the image forming apparatus can save the settings of each user and provide an environment convenient for each user to use.
When many users use such an image forming apparatus, many personal settings are registered in a single image forming apparatus. However, a storage capacity resource of the image forming apparatus is limited, and it is necessary to delete a user setting value which is no longer used. In order to save a time and effort of an administrator, unnecessary setting values are required to be automatically deleted. As a technique for deleting unnecessary data, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-143910 discusses a technique for deleting removable data when a sufficient storage capacity cannot be secured when data is stored.
However, if data deletion processing is executed to add new setting information during execution of a copy job or the like in the image forming apparatus, performance of job execution is affected by the processing. Further, it is troublesome for an administrator to manually execute the data deletion processing to secure a necessary capacity size.